enemies, of whom Tyre and Zidon, etc., were types. The “valley of
Jehoshaphat” may therefore be simply regarded as a general term for the
theatre of God’s final judgments on the enemies of Israel.
This valley has from ancient times been used by the Jews as a
burial-ground. It is all over paved with flat stones as tombstones, bearing
on them Hebrew inscriptions.
- JEHOSHEBA Jehovah-swearing, the daughter of Jehoram, the king of
Israel. She is called Jehoshabeath in 2 Chronicles 22:11. She was the only
princess of the royal house who was married to a high priest, Jehoiada (2
Chronicles 22:11). - JEHOVAH the special and significant name (not merely an appellative
title such as Lord [adonai]) by which God revealed himself to the ancient
Hebrews (Exodus 6:2, 3). This name, the Tetragrammaton of the Greeks,
was held by the later Jews to be so sacred that it was never pronounced
except by the high priest on the great Day of Atonement, when he entered
into the most holy place. Whenever this name occurred in the sacred books
they pronounced it, as they still do, “Adonai” (i.e., Lord), thus using
another word in its stead. The Massorets gave to it the vowel-points
appropriate to this word. This Jewish practice was founded on a false
interpretation of Leviticus 24:16. The meaning of the word appears from
Exodus 3:14 to be “the unchanging, eternal, self-existent God,” the “I am
that I am,” a convenant-keeping God. (Comp. Malachi 3:6; Hos. 12:5;
Revelation 1:4, 8.)
The Hebrew name “Jehovah” is generally translated in the Authorized
Version (and the Revised Version has not departed from this rule) by the
word LORD printed in small capitals, to distinguish it from the rendering
of the Hebrew Adonai and the Greek Kurios, which are also rendered Lord,
but printed in the usual type. The Hebrew word is translated “Jehovah”
only in Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4, and in the compound
names mentioned below.
It is worthy of notice that this name is never used in the LXX., the
Samaritan Pentateuch, the Apocrypha, or in the New Testament. It is
found, however, on the “Moabite stone” (q.v.), and consequently it must
have been in the days of Mesba so commonly pronounced by the Hebrews
as to be familiar to their heathen neighbours.